Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt maintains strong diplomatic and…

Telepinu had been able to recover a little ground from the Hurrians of Mitanni, by forming an alliance with the Hurrians of Kizzuwatna; however, with the end of his reign after about 1460, the Hittite Empire has entered a temporary "Dark Ages", the Middle Kingdom, lasting around thirty to seventy years, when records become too scanty to draw many conclusions.

The Middle Kingdom of the Hittites is not so much an independent phase of Hittite history as a period of transition between the Old and New Kingdoms.

Almost nothing is known about the Hittites in this period.

Telepinu I, who seizes power around 1460 BCE, reestablishes stability in the Hittite kingdom.

King Barattarna of Mitanni has expanded the kingdom west to Halab (Aleppo) and made a vassal of Idrimi, the vigorous ruler of the city-state of Alalakh.

The Luwian-Hurrian state of Kizzuwatna in the west, whose king, Pilliya, had signed a treaty with Idrimi, has also shifted its allegiance to Mitanni.

Local rulers in Syria take Hatshepsut’s death as an opportunity to throw off Egyptian hegemony, a revolt with which Thutmose must deal immediately.

The Canaanites unite and ally with the Kingdom of Mitanni.

The driving force behind this revolt is the King of Kadesh, which city’s powerful fortress offers protection to him and the city.

The King of Megiddo, a geographically important city with an equally strong fortress, joins the alliance.

Megiddo, located along the southwestern edge of Jezreel Valley just beyond the Mount Carmel ridge and the Mediterranean, controls the main trade route between Egypt and Mesopotamia.

A Canaanite-Syrian coalition of some three hundred and thirty rebellious princes opposes Thutmose, who gathers an army of chariots and infantry that numbers as many as ten thousand men, large for this time.

Thutmose, after his victory at Megiddo, devastates southeastern Mitanni, particularly in the region around Carchemish, where his grandfather Thutmose I had erected a nearby stela to celebrate his conquest of Syria and other lands beyond the Euphrates, but fails to subdue the kingdom.

The Mitanni king of Kadesh leads a Palestinian-Syrian coalition of some three hundred and thirty rebellious Canaanite princes to oppose the Egyptians in Syria-Palestine.

The Egyptian army assembles at the border fortress Tjaru (called Sile in Greek) and arrives ten days later at the Egyptian-loyal city of Gaza.

It leaves after one day's rest for the small city of Yehem, near Megiddo, which is reached after eleven days.

Megiddo, situated northeast of Carmel and about eighteen miles (twenty-nine kilometers) southeast of the modern city of Haifa,  stands along the northwest-southeast route that connects the Phoenician cities with Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley, controlling a commonly used pass on the trading route between Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Here, Thutmose sends out scouts.

To continue north, they must pass the Mount Carmel ridge.

Behind it lies the city and fortress of Megiddo, where the rebel forces have gathered.

Of three possible routes from Yehem to Megiddo, both the northern route, via Zefti, and the southern route, by way of Taanach, give safe access to the Jezreel Valley.

The middle route, via Aruna, is risky, following a narrow ravine that the troops can only travel single-file.

If the enemy waits at the end of the ravine, the Egyptian forces risk being cut down piecemeal.

The army leaders plead therefore to take either of the two easier roads.

Thutmose III, with information from the scouts, decides instead to take the direct path to Megiddo.

Thutmose himself leads his men on a forced march to the lightly guarded city of Aruna; a quick assault scatters the rebels and his army enters the valley unopposed.

The rebels have left large infantry detachments guarding the two more likely paths, and have all but ignored the middle path.

With large parts of the rebel army far away to the north and south, the Egyptian army now has a clear path to Megiddo.

Thutmose, seizing the opportunity, sets up camp, arrays his forces close to the enemy during the night, and attacks at dawn.

The rebels are on high ground adjacent to the fortress; the Egyptian line is arranged in a concave formation that threatens both rebel flanks.

The Pharaoh leads the attack from the center.

The combination of position and numbers, along with an early, bold attack, breaks the enemy's will; their line immediately collapses.

Those near the city flee into it, closing the gates behind them.

As the Egyptian soldiers fall to plundering the enemy camp, the scattered rebel forces, including the kings of Kadesh and Megiddo, are able to rejoin the defenders inside the city.

Those inside lower clothing to the men and chariots and actually pull them up over the walls.

The opportunity of a quick capture of the city following the battle is thus lost.

The Egyptians besiege the city, sending forces throughout the rebel lands, all of which readily recognize Egyptian sovereignty, but the city holds out for as much as seven months until the Egyptians wins the decisive Battle of Qinnah Brook.

The victorious army takes home three hundred and forty prisoners, twenty thousand and forty-one mares, one hundred and ninety-one foals, six stallions, nine hundred and twenty-four chariots, two hundred suits of armor, five hundred and two bows, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine cattle, twenty-two thousand five hundred sheep, and the royal armor, chariot and tent-poles of the King of Megiddo.

Thutmose spares the city and citizens but requires of the defeated kings that they each send a son to the Egyptian court.

The Egyptians after this victory devastate southeastern Mitanni, particularly in the region around Carchemish, but fail to subdue the kingdom.

Egypt later crushes a Syrian rebellion and demands oaths of fealty from local rulers, then allies with the Hittites to drive the Mitannians out of Syria.

Thutmose’s armies in Nubia push beyond the Fourth Cataract of the Nile.

Thutmose’s successful campaign in Syria-Palestine establishes an Egyptian empire in southwestern Asia, secures the fealty of all the rebellious princes except its Mitanni leader, and spurs Assyria, Babylonia and the Hittites to pay tribute to Egypt.

Shechem is rebuilt and reoccupied around 1450 as a significant strategic point in Egypt’s Asiatic empire.

Barattarna may have been the Mitannian king the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III encountered by the river Euphrates in his campaign of year 1447 BCE.

This can however only be deduced by comparing the chronology of ancient Egypt and Mitanni at a later date and working back the figures.

The Canaanite seaport of Jaffa is mentioned in an Egyptian letter from 1440 BCE, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, whose general, Djehuty had hid armed Egyptian warriors in large baskets and sent the baskets as a present to the city's governor.

Egypt has made the city a provincial capital.

The city is also mentioned in the Amarna letters under its Egyptian name Ya-Pho, (Ya-Pu, EA 296, l.33).